Sound film printer



June 11, 1940. l.. T. sAcHTLEBx-:N

SOUND FILM PRINTER Filed July s1, 1957 .why

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wr/CHL@ (Ittorneg Patented June '11, 1940 STATES SOUND FILM PRINTER tion of Delaware Application July 31, 1937, Serial No. 156,682

3 Claims.

invention pertains to an optical printer .nting sound films either with or without a ge in size.

in the projection or optical printing of sound nf h is rather large compared to the diameter A.e lens.` It has been discovered that a conterapie portion of the lack of uniformity of il@ the projected image is due to the vignetting eiect these relatively long lenses, and the vpresent invention pertains to a method of and apparatus compensating for this'lack of uniform illun i'ninationa in the application of my invention to a con tinuous printer, I increase the length of film illuminated longitudinally of the sound track in proportion to the loss of brightness in the optical system and, thereby secure uniform exposure over i155 the entire width of the sound track.

@ne object of my invention is to provide an :improved sound track printer.

Another object of rny invention is to provide a ind track printer which will give uniform ex sure over the entire width of the sound track.

I'inother object of my invention is to provide improved illuminating system for illuminating 'the sound track to be printed. f

Another object of my invention is to provide novel form of printing aperture for compensating for light losses in the optical system.

@ther and incidental objects of my invention i, he apparent to those skilled in the art from .reading of the following specification and an ection of the accompanying drawing in Figure l is a diagrammatic elevation of a conuoiis sound printer of a type adapted to emcfdy my invention,

Figure 2 is a transverse section of the illumiting system of the printer taken on the line .tw-2 oi l,

iigure 3 is a curve showing the variation in si@ Figure 5 is a view of a commercial form of slit constructed practically in accordance fr dimensions shown in Referring first to Fig. l; o l. a print is to be made is fed over the er any appropriate means such, for exemptes j magnetic drive for the drum as shown and dem scribed in Kellogg Reissue Patent No. il dated August 14, 1934. Light emitted incandescent lamp in the lamp house E is directed by means of an optical system 3 onto the nir an appropriate point and light emerging from t lm is directed by the optical system it upon 'the lm P on which the print is to be made. film P is fed over a drum 5 in a manner sin to the manner in which the iilm F is fed oveiq film drum l and the nlrns are fed speeds if the print ratio is to be izl or at spe proportional to the ratio of reduction, or largement. v

The lm F projects over the edge the I permitting the sound tract; area to ce i obstructed.

The optical system Il is provided with priate objectives 6 and l directing light and out of the optical system which may be of any an suitable type.

These objectives S and i, as stated atreve, i analogous to microscope objectives small size of the sound track and the treni small sound wave images recorded thereon, due to the barrel-length ci these es cs.. siderable vignetting eiiect occurs.

The illuminating system as shown. in includes an incandescent lamp i@ having ment il. densers l2 and i3 through the disc it provided with a slit iii. Light emerging slit i5 passes to the mirrors l@ and directed to the compound lens le ups is focused and which, in turn, focuses image of the slit i5 upon the :lili-n F at track portion thereof.

The mirrors l5 and il may ne aluminum or may he oi glass coated or aluminum or chromium and aiunn front surfaces.

The image on the nlm er sumcient length transversely ci' the sol to cover the entire width of the sound t Light, after passing through the film as stated before, directed by the optical srs and transversely of the sound track is as shown in the curve at Fig. 3, i. e., if the illumination at the center of the image be taken as 100%, then at the edges of the sound track the illumination falls to and the density of the print image in relation to the image on the film F will be varied accordingly.

In order to compensate for this, the necessary widths for the slit l5 are shown in Fig. 4, as determined from the curve given in Fig. 3. The length of the slit l5 is as shown in Fig. 4 .725" and the several widths thereof necessary to compensate for the irregularity in illumination are indicated in alignment with the figure ,in decimal fractions of an inch.

It will be apparent from these figures that the curvatures necessary for the proper correction of the illumination approximate circular arcs and I have determined that satisfactory illumination can be accomplished by using curvatures such as given in Fig. 5.

In the type of slit shown in Fig. 5, the length of the slit as in Fig. 4 is .725, the Width of the slit at its middle point is .0725 and the radius of the curvature of each of the sides'is 1.750. Since these curves are arcs of circles they are comparatively simple to construct commercially as compared to a curve other than a circular arc, and I have ascertained that using this form of aperture (with proper reduction ratio to illuminate the standard size sound track of 35 mm. film) the density of the print is rendered substantially uniform from the center to the edge.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that due to the finite width of the slit used for illumination, the film P mus't move in the same direction in which the image of the film F tends to move and at the same speed, and the uniform exposure is accomplished by the greater exposure time adjacent the edges of the sound track than in the middle thereof.

It will be apparent from Fig. 2 that the lamp l0 has a filament ll composed of two or more parallel helices. These coils or helices instead of being arranged in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis, as is customary, are arranged in a plane parallel with the optical axis and I find that this arrangement produces a more uniform illumination of the aperture than could be otherwise secured.

While my invention is described as applied to a sound lm printer, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that it is not limited thereto but may be used in sound recorders, sound reproducers or any similar device where it is desired to secure uniform total illumination across the width of the sound track.

I claim as my invention:

1. A projection printer including means for moving a lm having an image thereon past an operational point, an optical system for producing an image of said film in an image plane, and means for moving sensitized film stock past the image in said image plane, a light source for illuminating the film, an illuminating aperture deiining a beam of light from said source, and lens means for directing light from said aperture to the nlm and imaging said aperture on said film, the said aperture having a Width varying in proportion to the errors in intensity of illumination tending to be produced by vignetting in said apparatus.

2. A projection printer including means for moving a film having an image thereon past an operational point, an optical system for producing an image of said iilm in an image plane, and means for moving sensitized film stock past the image in said image plane, a light source for illuminating the film, an illuminating aperture deiining a beam of light from said source, and lens means for directing light from said aperture to the film and imaging said aperture on said film, the said aperture having a width varying in proportion to the errors in intensity of illumination tending to be produced by vignetting in said apparatus, and the edges of said aperture being defined byarcs of circles.

3. A projection printer including means for moving a film having an image thereon past an operational point, an optical system for producing an image of said film in an image plane, and means for moving sensitized film stock past the image in said image plane, a light source for illuminating the film, an illuminating aperture defining a beam of light from said source, and lens means for directing light from said aperture to the film and imaging said aperture on said film, the said aperture having a width varying in proportion to the errors in intensity of illumination tending to be produced by vignetting in said apparatus, and the edges of said aperture being defined by arcs of circles, and the said light source having a plurality of coil filaments with their plane along the optical axis of the apparatus.

LAWRENCE T. SACH'I'LEBEN. 

